“You say fast and then they say fastest!
You say computer and then the fast guys say, supercomputer!
Then you say nothing more
Simply a name of a machine; SYCAMORE!”
intrigued!?
read on!
There was this joke where a guy is asked in the army interview what is his best qualification? And he says that he can give answers very fast!
Then the examiner asks him what is the product of some complicated numbers like say 56 and 77 and he replies 14!
The examiner then says; “That is completely wrong!”
To which the guy says, “I said I can give answers very fast! Did not say they were right!”
So in the defence services, it is told that quick decision is the key! The chief intention here is that the decision must be fast and done without pressure and of course must be correct!
Most of the military decisions are actually done quickly and at the spur of the moment and this also is the same for certain medical decisions!
At that time you cannot sit and analyse whether the decision is good or bad or correct or valid! You simply make a decision and hope that it will be right!
Those who sit and analyse the decisions come later, they sit comfortably in peace and then analyse your decision! After observing the result of your decisions a guideline is formulated and that then becomes the rule.
Which is why you do need a system or computer which can make fast decision! This is where AI comes in and this is one of the chief reasons to consider AI in your decision!
Even a standard mobile or computer can make calculations and give you results much faster than you can even comprehend! Of course there are exceptions but like always they cannot be examples!
Now of course this can be done by a routine computer and not even a fast one! So imagine what a fast or super fast computer can do!
Of course one of the fastest computers in the world are the one which can compute in unimaginable speeds!
So while normal PCs and laptops usually have power of several hundred gigaFLOPS — Some computers have speeds in excess of 1 trillion (109) FLOPS.
The most powerful supercomputer in the world now exceeds 1 exaFLOP — 1 quintillion (1018) FLOPS!
We refer to machines like this as exascale supercomputers!
They were the fastest computers in the universe…till…
So among the supercomputers, currently top of the list is the Frontier — built by supercomputing giant HPE Cray — became the first exascale computer in the world when it went online in 2022.
As of December 2023, Frontier is the world’s fastest supercomputer.
It is based on the Cray EX and is the successor to Summit (OLCF-4).
Frontier achieved an Rmax of 1.102 exaFLOPS, which is 1.102 quintillion floating-point operations per second, using AMD CPUs and GPUs!
It was the top of the game till Google got the first quantum computer called the sycamore!
Traditional computers operate based on bits, which can be in a state of either 0 or 1. Quantum computers, on the other hand, operate on quantum bits, known as qubits. Unlike traditional bits, a qubit can exist in both states simultaneously, thanks to a quantum principle called superposition.
Superposition increases the computing power of a quantum computer exponentially. For example, two qubits can exist in four states simultaneously (00, 01, 10, 11), three qubits in eight states, and so on. This allows quantum computers to process a massive number of possibilities at once.
Another key quantum principle quantum computers exploit is entanglement. Entangled qubits are deeply linked. Change the state of one qubit, and the state of its entangled partner will change instantaneously, no matter the distance. This feature allows quantum computers to process complex computations more efficiently.
Of course now everyone would like to know what is the comparison of Sycamore with Frontier!
Well, according to the Google team, it would take the Frontier supercomputer merely 6.18 seconds to match a calculation from Google’s 53-qubit computer.
However, Frontier, the fastest computer in the world would take an astonishing 47.2 years to match a computation executed by Google’s latest 70-qubit device!
Now that is speed! And how speed becomes a bloodsport! Of talking about bloodsport has to remind me of our favourite movie and actor Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg known professionally as Jean-Claude Van Damme!
Have watched it so many times!
Now slowly say good night to everyone and sleep!!
Shubh ratri!!
ramadocblog 